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The Cranberries And Mould Branch Out, But Westerberg Withers

April 26, 1996|By Greg Kot.

The Cranberries sing about matters of the heart, both personal and political, with transparent prettiness and naivete. Melodies drift past like vapor trails, the traces of a sincere but rather insubstantial band.

Yet the Irish quartet's pop confections and the guileless voice of Dolores O'Riordan can be disarming. On the group's new album, "To the Faithful Departed" (Island), due out Tuesday, the minor pleasures abound, from the Celtic pastoralism of "Electric Blue" to the hymnlike longing of "When You're Gone."

And there are bolder attempts to expand the band's sometimes twee folk-pop. With two multimillion-selling albums preceding it, "To the Faithful Departed" is less a breakthrough than a partially successful attempt to expand the Irish quartet's modest strengths.

Sentimental laments -- for lost childhood, victims of war, a late grandparent, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, even John F. Kennedy -- make up the bulk of "To the Faithful Departed." Its predecessors showcased the pristine melodicism of O'Riordan's voice against a backdrop of chiming guitars, but on the new disc the band pushes out in both directions, toward the rougher edge first glimpsed on the 1994 hit "Zombie" and also toward more elaborately orchestrated balladry that incorporates strings, horns and even a musical saw.

This lends drama but not necessarily depth to the band's songs, and coupled with O'Riordan's sometimes clumsy lyricism and caricatured emotional imagery, diminishes the Cranberries' hallmark: small, sturdy pop songs about private moments, family matters, small-town life.

O'Riordan as a lyricist is at her best when she stays close to home, her professions of love in "When You're Gone" tinged by loss, her remembrance of a late relative in "Joe" echoing the domestic tranquility portrayed on the 1994 hit "Ode to My Family." Broader subjects leave the Cranberries mired in simplistic cliches: War is bad, drugs are bad, John Lennon's death bummed everyone out.

A little humor might have helped, but most of the laughs are unintentional. In "Salvation," O'Riordan outlines her take-no-prisoners policy on drugs: "To all those people doin' lines, don't do it, don't do it"; "To all the parents . . . tie your kids to their beds, clean their heads." Just as blunt and blundering is "I Just Shot John Lennon," which ends with the sound of gunfire, just in case listeners didn't pick up the message the first three dozen times in the chorus: "John Lennon died, John Lennon died, John Lennon died." As the sweepingly orchestrated final track, "Bosnia," winds to a close, it concludes with the sound of a child's music box playing a lullaby.

Perhaps the lack of sophistication in these emotional ploys is part of the Cranberries' charm. But now that this band has emerged from Limerick, Ireland, confident enough to take on the world, it might be nice if they came up with something original to say about it.

Trifles and bile

Much of what passes for new rock in the '90s was actually defined a decade ago by two stellar if dissimilar bands from Minneapolis, Husker Du and the Replacements. In Husker Du's merger of noise and melody, in the Replacements' shaggy-dog tunes and stumblebum passion, can be found any number of antecedents for today's most revered alt-rock styles and poses.

Husker Du and the Mats have long since imploded, but the bands' respective cornerstones, Bob Mould and Paul Westerberg, remain unbowed. Both in their mid-30s, they resurface Tuesday with new albums, Mould's "Bob Mould" (Rykodisc) and Westerberg's "Eventually" (Reprise).

Of the two, Westerberg is most in need of rejuvenation. His 1993 solo debut, "14 Songs," sounded more like a songwriting exercise than a matter of any particular urgency, and "Eventually" sounds even less inspired. It's not so much that Westerberg has lost his touch for turning the pithy phrase or crafting the stick-to-your-ribs melodic hook -- although even these skills have started to wither -- it's just that he seems to have nothing left to say.

To his credit, he doesn't try to sound like he's a 23-year-old with a bad case of runaway hormones anymore. But no longer does he sound particularly engaged or personally involved with his songs either; he now comes off as a craftsman, a writer of the kind of complacent pop tunes that his old band might have knocked into serviceable B-side filler.

Perhaps because the songs are so undemanding or because they're performed by an array of faceless pros, Westerberg sounds utterly detached from his material, with a couple of exceptions.